My Time With Leslie From #Drive Web Series
Leslie Juvin-Acker #DRIVE
By Larry Balma
Sometimes things in life seem to be meant to be, my Mom always believed in destiny. Hooking up with Leslie was one of those moments. Leslie has what I call infectious enthusiasm. She is a life coach, as well as spiritual, professional, and personal growth consultant specializing in Executive Leadership and Career Development coaching. She is very intelligent, intuitive, focused, but very comfortable to be around. Leslie’s #DRIVE is appropriate because a driver she is. We needed to create a website just for the Tracker book in order to properly communicate with book stores and libraries. Leslie recognized this intuitively and connected us to help facilitate the website and held our hand and coached us through the construction. All the while her personal goal was to interview me and produce a new video for her monthly insertion on the Malakye website that could help inspire others and offer insights from my business life that could help others in the Action Sports Industry… Let me tell you the whole story about how we met.
I co-Founded TransWorld Skateboarding Magazine 1n 1983 along with my partner Peggy Cozens. George Salvador, owner of Breakout Surf Magazine in Carlsbad, California, was one of my mentors in the publishing business. I met Allen Carrasco who was the photo lab technician for Breakout at the time. Allen taught me how to use the Lucigraph machine to size images for page layout way before there was any computer desktop publishing. Allen attended Palomar College along with J. Grant Brittain, Sonny Miller, and Lance Smith, all of who became great photographers. Allen concentrated on surf and fashion photography over the years and more recently began filming and editing cinema, primarily interviews with high-profile musicians and actors.
Allen took over management of the Moose Lodge in South Oceanside in 2015. The building has been there since the 1920s beginning its life as the Studebaker car dealership. Allen and John Gilley and friends performed a dramatic remodel turning the site into a nightclub complete with a stage and of course a back room that doubles as his photo studio. He invited the California Surf Museum to attend the one-year anniversary party at the lodge so that we could see the potential that the Moose Lodge offers as a party and event venue. I had a wonderful time catching up with Allen that night and became a card-carrying member of the Loyal Order of Moose!
The Lodge hosted a six-year anniversary party for Feeding the Soul Foundation, the charity of Oceanside’s Jitters Coffee Shop owner, Vallie Gilley, and her friend Cat Bramhall. Feeding the Soul produces rock concerts at theaters and other venues in San Diego featuring upcoming local performers, Cody Lovaas, Raining Jane, along with some big names like Billy Bushwalla Galewood and Jason Mraz. My wife Louise and I attended the six-year party, it was a wonderful event. Vallie Gilley and her Feeding the Soul volunteer crew had worked for Louise on the annual California Surf Museum Fundraiser Gala for two years.
That evening while talking with Allen he shared his latest cinema project with me. He was filming and editing monthly interviews for Leslie Juvin-Acker and the Malakye website. He wanted me to come and meet her and possibly do an interview about my book, TRACKER – Forty Years of Skateboard History. Allen described Leslie as a dynamo.
Larry Balma and Leslie Juvin-Acker after finishing the filming of the #DRIVE episode. Be sure to watch the #DRIVE episode on Larry and TRACKER-Forty Years of Skateboard History. It’s GREAT!